“Does this turn you on?” On the surface this titillating question, posed by corporate spy Connie Nielsen to a rival, refers to the illicit website coveted by the ruthless characters of Olivier Assayas’s demonlover, but it could also be posited by Assayas himself to his audience. Demonlover delivers all of the “reliable” Euro-indie art-house movie conventions certain to arouse a specific audience subset, yet the movie is not wholly the sum total of its parts. In demonlover, an appealing surface veneer masks the more complex, and often unsettling core. Intriguingly, a number of the actors in this French film, like Nielsen and Chloë Sevigny, do not speak French as their first language, yet the script calls upon them to be convincing savvy international businesswomen. The fluidity of language in this urban setting creates another masking layer in the film’s narrative. As a thriller plot point, it makes sense that an assassin and spy could adopt any pertinent language, whether it be English, French, or Japanese, at a moment’s notice. Yet Assayas’s comfort in directing dialogue not in his first language draws attention to his choice to set the primary action in France. Somehow, the scenes where Sevigny barks out her annoyance at her ice queen boss in French has more gravitas, more mystique, and more tension than when she lapses into her crudely natural East Coast American accent. Assayas understands this crucial difference (angry blonde in heels speaking French = erotic) and in utilizing it, plays with our preconceptions regarding “sexy” art films. Hearing American, Danish, or Japanese actors speaking in French only intensifies the perceived European art film-ness of demonlover and language in this film becomes another signifier of arousal. However the most unsettling question posed by demonlover is not whether these scenarios turn us on, but rather if in being aroused we’re then implicated in a responsibility for their perpetuation. If you find torture porn exploitative, then does consuming it, even in a detached narrative setting, make you slightly culpable for its continued creation? The final images needle the viewer for at least the beginning of an answer.